


Century of Ivalice

by Amoris



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Community: ff_land, Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-26 00:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amoris/pseuds/Amoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From Rabanastre to Ridorana, assorted tales in one hundred words.  (Give or take.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hunger

Rabanastre feasts, the spirit of the city drunken and content as a lizard on the sun-parched sand. Desire and want come to rest here; greed takes shade. The magpie laughter of lazy merchants mingles with the bitter cries of the filthy war orphans, and the city devours them all.

There is need here, seeking in every grit-filled corner; there is unrest as unrelenting as the sun. The people here are not broken, but they are bowed, forgetting the roots that stretch far under the sands to find their sustenance and strength.

The hands of the Empire, ripe for the biting.


	2. Silver

She remembers the glint of his armour, reflecting the sun of their ancestors into her eyes as surely as if the Gods had chosen to blind her with hope and promise. He was a vessel of divinity, a solid pillar between all she held dear and all that lurked too close.

That pure, silver light keeping the shadows of Imperial wolves at bay.

She remembers a last, long look, and the glare of the sun. The light danced over the surface of him, captured in the very depths of him, obscuring all else.

Within him, she could not find herself.


	3. Wind

“Ever heard the song of the Estersand?” Vaan asks.

She frowns; she does not wish to encourage him with more attention than the utmost necessary. “Does it sing?”

“You bet,” he says. He reaches out to touch her wrist; she snaps away from his reach. “Ashe, just listen.”

She stops. All she can hear is the wind catching the sand in its restless pursuits, playing the grains against the cliffs. A sweet tone, the faintest of bell chimes.

A smile tugs at her mouth; she holds her breath as the scorching breeze sings for her again.


	4. Curse

“She is your curse to bear.”

Balthier stared into his empty glass to avoid the eyes of his partner. Fran's ominous wording stayed his tongue. It was a shame he hadn't yet drunk enough to convince himself that a Viera could be prone to jest.

“You'll still fly with me?”

“Onto this path, the Gods have set us both. It's not for you or I to decide to turn away.”

He smirked, finally casting a side-long glance at her. “And I was worried you'd make this out to be my fault.”

“They are _your_ Gods.”


	5. Imitation

This hero's journey is folly. Had he the will of a lesser man, he would quit this cause and take to the sky. He would leave the princess to her fate, she who is deemed worthy to stumble in the footsteps of dynastic forebear.   
  
She is a shadow, as the candle is but pale imitation of brighter, burning stars. Her name may yet be writ bold in blood on the sands of her kingdom, but she, as he, is only a hume-child, and she is vulnerable, and venerable as the dawn.  
  
She is the dawn, and he cannot look away.


	6. Vermin

The boy is vermin. Ratsbane, he's called on the dark streets below the sand. He has the stench of Rabanastre about him, of stagnant water and baking stone. Son of the desert, son of Dalmasca, a waterway wayfarer with his head in the clouds.   
  
Lost child, soft-eyed, hopeful. His body is sharp, hardened by hunger. On his person, quartz and turquoise to mark his low birth. His heart is nourished by the runoff of war. He has no cause, no purpose, only anger, a sun-fed fire and the quick strike of his steel.  
  
He is vermin. He is what remains.


	7. Trap

He doesn't know how this happened. He was careful. Kept her out of it. Now she's snatched by bangaa, holed up in a mine. She's probably hurt, hungry. His guilt mounts by the minute.

She wasn't supposed to get tangled in his mess – not that he'd intended to make a mess, but he's past dwelling on that now. He's up to his ears in traitors and pirates and plots, and all he can think about is Penelo. It's making it hard to keep his head, and he needs his head because even he can see.

Penelo is a trap.


	8. Possession

Gabranth is a man haunted.   
  
Anger is a taint upon his soul, its possession of him as strong as the hold of a demon out of the darkest hell, bloodied claws sunk deep into his heart. He is at the mercy of his memory, and with his own hands, he commits the horrors from which his noble brother turns his head away in sorrow and shame.   
  
There is king's blood on these hands, boy's blood, brother's blood.   
  
And now hers, even hers. He takes his blade to she whom he loves and calls it justice.  
  
Gabranth is a man damned.


	9. Opposition

Ashelia. Never was there more dutiful a child, sweet of spirit, wise beyond her years.  
  
This young woman who stands in opposition to him, who is she?   
  
This woman is a stranger, hardened by life underground, bitter by necessity.  
  
He remembers this gentle face, full of hollow and shadow. He knows these grey eyes, knows the burning resolve within them. It fills him with grief.   
  
_“Uncle,”_ she pleads with him.   
  
To steel himself is no easy thing.  
  
To stand aside and let her disappear into the night with the pirate and her knight, this is hardest of all.


End file.
